The invention applies in particular to the case where said very long members are constituted by metal sections.
When very long metal sections are used, the relative movement between the slide and the section can be of concern in particular for applications relating to the fixing of very long rails such as: rails which carry travelling cranes; and lateral guide rails for public transport vehicles. These movements can indeed result from the differential expansion of the members under the effect of temperature or even from a deformation by shrinkage and creep of the base which supports the fixed slide in the case of a concrete base.
It is well known that the effects of temperature and/or of shrinkage of concrete on metal parts fixed on solid masses of masonry or on reinforced concrete structures result in great differential deformation in the case of very long continuous members; if these deformations are blocked, appreciable forces are applied to said members and to their fixed supports.
Previous techniques are generally based on the principle of a connection between a slide and a section by bolting, with an oblong hole (generally in the section) to keep the possibility of relative movement between the slide and the section. Such techniques restrict the dimensions of the sections which can be used. Indeed, if the results are acceptable for medium-length sections (e.g. about fifty meters), there are numerous disadvantages when very long sections (one hundred meters and more) are used. The main disadvantages are as follows:
it becomes very tricky to produce sections, since shorter members are used and are butt welded and hence the parallelism of the oblong holes is difficult to obtain, which makes the relative movement of the section in relation to the slide difficult, or even impossible when the clearance between the bolts and the holes associated therewith becomes insufficient;
when it is envisaged to use curved sections with a 15 conventional slide support, there is a very great danger of self-locking; and
the installing and adjusting operations remain tricky and require skilled labor, especially when the tolerances are small.
The present invention aims to provide a connection system between a slide and a very long member without the above disadvantages, avoiding in particular the machining of oblong holes, facilitating the installing and adjusting operations and being particularly well adapted to the use of such very long members, while remaining simple and economical to manufacture.